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“You’re here tosave me?”
Kai nodded with enthusiasm, and his clear eyes somehow beamed even brighter in the night. Was it a trick of the shadows, or were his irises actually lilac? “Yep! We came as soon as we heard about you.”
Was this dude serious?Like I was really going to hop from one abduction right into another.
“Wow, that’s really…niceof you,” I murmured, eyeing the surrounding space. Not a soul was around now that Papa had been carried off. Fantastic.
Squaring in front of him, I sized up my aspiring captor. Kai had barely an inch on me and sure didn’t look strong enough to take me with him by force. But did you really need strength when you were friends with afreaking titan?That merman from earlier sure wouldn’t have any trouble stuffing me, or an entire warehouse full of merfolk, in the back of a trunk if he wanted to.
“Why don’t I go grab my… stuff and meet you back here?”
Kai’s eyebrows lifted like I’d just presented him with an exceptionally sugary slice of cake, but I wasn’t going to stick around to watch him salivate over the thought of using my tail for his own kingdom’s gain. Swerving around him, I retreated toward the warehouse.
As long as I could get inside, everything would be okay. Leander would finish his meeting soon, and he’d know what to say to keep me here. To keep me safe.
Wait—what was I thinking?Since when was it Leander’s job to keep me safe?
I turned the corner and barreled right into some solid, immovable mass that knocked the breath right out of me. “Oof.”
I reared back, and the freaking titan was in front of me, his colossal head and dark eyes glowering down at me like I was some unbidden squirrel who’d attempted to climb his massive tree trunk of a body.Poseidon’s fury. He was huge. Even a squirrel would know better than to think it could handle the size of one of his nuts.
“S-sorry,” I said, chucking the disturbing mental picture I’d just conjured up as far from my mind as possible.
He took a step back, and I noticed a peculiar strap of leather fastened around his chest. Driven by curiosity, I traced the line of dark leather with my eyes, starting with the thinnest part wrapped underneath one arm. From there, it ran over his well-fitted dress shirt, tightly hugging his chest like a second skin, as the leather broadened into the place where it hit his right shoulder.
The place where a right arm would have been.
Instead, the brace rounded out, covering the side of his shoulder with a smoothly polished circle of leather that replaced the space where a deltoid muscle would have formed. Astonishingly, the illusion it created almost balanced out the size of the muscular shoulder on the opposite side.
I shouldn’t have stared and certainly hadn’t meant to. But when my eyes flicked back up to his, the tortured look waiting for me nearly knocked the breath from my lungs again.
“I… I didn’t mean—”
“So does this mean Queen Javalynn won’t be coming?” A hand clapped against Barren’s leather-bound shoulder as Leander stepped beside him. “My father is going to be pissed when he—Claira? Why aren’t you inside?”
I opened my mouth to fire something back at him, but my eyes caught sight of his jeans. He had rolled them up into a rather odd-looking pair of shorts. And was that blood smeared over his legs?
“What happened to you?” I gasped, reaching out for one of his scrapes, but his hand caught my wrist.
“No, don’t touch them.” When my mouth snapped back open, a mouthful of questions at the ready, he pressed a finger up to my lips. “Things got a little heated with my father, and I kicked a box of plates or something. Thenbam, the whole fucking line of boxes came down, shattering all over me.”
He gave a nervous little chuckle as I spun around him, scoping out the damage. There were even little red beads of blood soaking their way through the back of his shirt. Had he rolled around in the shards, too?
“Oh, Lee,” I said, lightly running my fingers over the red stains between his shoulder blades. Something didn’t seem right, but before I could press Leander further, Kai turned the corner, and I froze where I stood.
Crap.So much for my escape.
“Whoa,dude.” Kai stopped, flashing Leander a friendly grin. “I was going to say you look better with clothes on, but you kind of look worse. Are you okay, man?”
That, I could agree with. Leander looked way worse than he had on the boat. Even when I’d woken him up, his bed hair was—at worst—artfully unkempt. He was never as disheveled as this. Heck, he looked more beaten now than when I’d plucked him up out of the ocean half-dead and freezing.
“Yeah, well, you know how it is dealing with royalty.” All three of them shared a look, and Leander let out a long sigh. “I’m good. Just let my emotions get the better of me, that’s all.”
“Hmm. If you say so, man. Hey, you gonna go grab your stuff, Nerida?” Kai asked brightly. Leander threw me a quizzical look before snaking an arm around my waist and pulling me up beside him. I opened my eyes as wide as they would go and gestured to the warehouse, hoping he would get the message. By the way his eyebrows sank, his eyes narrowing in confusion… clearly, he had not.
“Her name is Claira,” Leander corrected, a bite in his tone. I laughed nervously, trying to edge him back to the warehouse, but he stood firm beside me. “What’s this about grabbing your stuff? What stuff? Why does he want you to getstuff?”
How could someone so beautiful be so clueless? And also, why was Kai giving away his kidnapping plan right out of the gate? Did any of them have any sense? I turned my focus to Kai.
